


Not A Dream

by axolotlnerd-campcamp (axolotlNerd)



Series: Pheonix [2]
Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, There's actually no direct violence, dadvid, just referenced
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-10
Updated: 2019-05-10
Packaged: 2020-02-29 18:06:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18783394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/axolotlNerd/pseuds/axolotlnerd-campcamp
Summary: After finding Max, David is wildly thrown off course, and Gwen offers to help him get back on track while also dealing with the situation at hand. But starting from the scraps that camp left them isn’t even the hardest part.





	Not A Dream

He never remembered what the fights were about. He knew there were reasons for them, shitty ones, reasons that meant nothing compared to the aftermath, but there were reasons nonetheless. But no matter how hard he tried, all he could remember what happened afterwards. All he could remember was how he got the injuries he sustained.

Max’s foster father was a tall man, taller than anyone he could remember. He was bitter and spat every word he said, and every word came out like a slap to the face, and if he ever laughed it always sounded like it was at you. He was sharp at the edges and being near him was like walking on a razor’s edge — you knew you’d fuck up and fall eventually, all you could really wonder was when and how badly it would hurt. 

He couldn’t remember what the fight was about. It felt years ago away now, like it hadn’t been just a short 8 hours earlier, Hell, it probably wasn’t even that. It could have been a lifetime ago that he’d been shoved down the stairs that connected the first and second floors of their apartment, an ice age since his mother stood by and watched with cold blue eyes, uncaring and unforgiving and not thinking anything of when her husband tossed a shoe at him and yelled,  _ if you know what’s good for you, you won’t bother coming back, you ungrateful bastard. _

Max was shivering and sitting up in bed, clutching the blanket as tightly as his hands would let him. This wasn’t his room, thank God, it was somewhere different and quieter and unscarred with memories. Pallid light stretched across the floor from the window where the city lights dotted landscape outside, and except for the hushed shuffle of life in the living room and Max still catching his breath, everything was quiet.

He must have fallen asleep in the car. He didn’t recognize the room, or remember first laying down. All he could remember was being in pain, his ankle hurting and his head hurting and his arms and legs hurting and then a hand softly placed on his head, a low rumbling in David’s chest as he comforted him, a strange and foreign and good feeling.

He loosened his grip on the sheets, closing his eyes for a minute and testing the waters of sleep. When they returned red and violent, mirroring his nightmare once again, he opened his eyes and focused on the room.

_ No more sleep. Not right now. _ He just needed to ground himself for a moment, just take a while to memorize the space around him and realize that he was safe. At least for the time being, he was safe, and he had the scars to prove it.

The rain hummed outside still, the sound muffled but still filling the silence. David’s room was nice — he had all sorts of things on the walls, and Max could recognize a lot of them from camp, the stupid stick with the bird and a paper that said “Max + Positivity = Success!”, and Max began to wonder if David actually believed that.

Something sounded out from outside the room, followed by someone shushing someone else. It was late, was David still awake? Suddenly it occurred to Max that him being in here must mean he was sleeping on the couch, and he felt a shot of guilt shoot through him.

Carefully, he stepped off the bed, careful not to use his bad ankle to lead himself away from the bed. He was cautious, maybe overly so as he walked to the door of the room, leaving and holding his breath.

The whole house felt so  _ David. _ In the low light the rainy autumn night allowed, Max could see pictures on the walls in frames, the faint outline of animals in the pictures there, and various other decorations lined the walls, wood carved moose and bears and deer and all sorts of things memorializing the local fauna.

“I- I just-” Max heard David stutter from the living room, and held his breath again. He didn’t know what would happen to him if he was caught out this late, and that just might be scarier than knowing and fearing it.

“David,  _ breathe, _ I can’t understand you.” Gwen was here too, and he wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. He stepped closer to the end of the hallway, trying to listen in closer. David was crying, that much was clear, and while he had countless times at camp, this seemed different. He was trying to communicate something, trying to hold himself together and he was  _ failing. _

Max sat on the floor with his back to the wall that separated him and David and Gwen, listening in to the conversation.

After a moment, David tried to keep explaining. “I was just leaving, and then he was just  _ there, _ he must have been in the rain for  _ hours _ -” His voice wavered, knowing he was right. “And then I saw him in the light and he was- what did they  _ do _ to him?”

Max felt him shrink into himself, and it was quiet for a moment. “David?” Gwen asked, and David responded with a shuddering breath. After a moment, he continued, voice low and upset.

“He’s got a lot of bruises, a few small cuts. I think his ankle is sprained. I’m sorry I made you come out here for this, I just… I don’t know what to do.” He sniffled again, and then he cried out, as quietly as he could manage. “Why didn’t I do anything sooner? I should have known, I  _ knew, _ why didn’t I do something?”

Gwen shushed him again, trying to offer him comfort, and Max drew his legs up, knees at his chest and crossing his arms. “David,” she said, and even her voice sounded watery, and Max cursed at that because God it wasn’t like he’d  _ died _ or anything. “Listen, we can’t change what we did at camp. We’re lucky we have a chance to fix it at all, right? So we just have to do our best now. That’s the best we can do.”

It was quiet again, David trying to stifle his sobs and Gwen shushing him. Max looked at the wall across from him vacantly, trying to clear his head, trying to stop thinking about how he shouldn’t have let this happen, that he should have let that goodbye at camp be the last one, that he should have kept running when David called for him.

After a moment of silence, Max quietly stood up, making his way back to the bed room and hoping he could sleep off this awful feeling.

 

When he woke up, Max stayed in bed as long as he could manage, expecting someone to come and wake him up eventually. No one came, and before long boredom pulled him to his feet to wander out of the bedroom. It was the same in the morning light, but still strange to see how peaceful it was in the room. He wasn’t used to this kind of stillness in the air.

He didn’t even want to get out of bed without someone dragging him out — limping through the hallway felt even worse. Though his ankle had begun to swell, and walking on it felt even worse than it had before, he’d rather bite the bullet than suffer through the embarrassment of not being able to walk. The pain was bad, but he refused to feel that helpless again.

To his surprise, David was still asleep on the couch when he walked out. While he thought he could just slip passed him and find the bathroom or anywhere where he might keep bandaids, Gwen quickly saw him sneaking towards the kitchen.

He froze when he saw her, almost as if he’d been caught doing something bad, like stealing or being bruised almost anywhere he could see.

But she smiled, leaning over the kitchen counter with a mug in her hands, the smell of coffee sweet in the air. “Hey, kid.” She said, and her eyes barely flickered over his bruises, quickly favoring meeting his eyes. 

He just wanted to cover up even more, now. “Where’d you come from?” He asked, trying to sound bitter but only sounding tired.

“David called me over last night.” She explained, not wanting to elaborate on reason why. Max simply nodded and looked around, and at finding the bathroom, walked in and began to search through the cabinets for bandaids.

 

Gwen gave Max a glass of orange juice before telling him the game plan for the day. He was dreading it all, going to the police and talking to social services for what must have been the thousandth time in his life.

She asked if he wanted to stay with David. He didn’t answer.

David woke up after not too long, and Max almost thought he could have completely fabricated what happened that night. He was as bubbly as ever, happily making breakfast and chatting.

But he was porcelain. He was fragile and even a hairline crack showed up like a canyon in the earth’s crust. Even the smallest falter in his attitude, a twitch in his smile or him spacing out for a moment, was a blaring alarm.

Gwen took the lead when they got to the police station, and after explaining the situation to the person at the front desk they quickly took Max aside to ask him questions. How he knew these people, what happened at home, what happened last night. Too many questions, too many things he didn’t want to answer.

When they finally told him he was done, David was already sitting in the waiting room, looking around the room. He heard Max’s off-rhythm footsteps and looked over, smiling at him.

“Hey, Max!” He said cheerful, but it was off somehow, and Max sat down next to him, not replying. All of a sudden, he wished he had his hoodie, wished he had someplace to put his hands because he felt childish with them on the seat at his sides.

People murmured in the back of the police station, and for a moment Max thought he heard Gwen’s voice, and he began to wonder what they needed to talk to her about. He remembered her mentioning something about a missing persons report, how if his parents filed one David could be in a lot of trouble, and suddenly the guilt that sat heavy in his stomach felt even heavier, because what if something went wrong? Something  _ always _ went wrong with his luck, surely this would backfire too. Surely something awful would happen at the last second, the police wouldn’t believe him or his foster parents would —

“Max?” David suddenly interrupted Max’s tumultuous thought, and now he was back in the seat of the police station, waiting for something to happen.

“Yeah?” Max responded.

“I, um…” David shifted in his seat, and looked away from Max. The kid peered at him curiously, wondering if he was finally going to spit out whatever hairball it was that made his image so askew. “I… I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I should have been there with you guys when your parents came to pick you up. I should have asked if you would be okay when you got home. I… I always got this bad feeling whenever you brought up your home life, and I’m sorry I didn’t act on that. Me and Gwen are gonna do our best to make that up to you, to fix all of this. Because you don’t deserve any of what happened to you. And I’m sorry I didn’t do anything to prevent it.”

If he honestly believed he had any blame to take for this, he must have been dumber than Max had originally thought.

“It’s not your fault.” Max replied, trying not to show that he didn’t quite know what to say. “I didn’t tell you. You didn’t know. I’m sorry this had to become your problem, anyways.”

_ I’m sorry I’m your problem, now. _

David looked at him, wide eyed. “Max, don’t say that!” He gasped, looking concerned. “It’s not a problem. It’s just… A situation, is all. And there is nothing more important to me than helping you get through it.”

David’s logic was flawed. He was an adult, he had a job and rent and bills to pay and he sure as Hell didn’t need some problem child leeching off of him to make it all worse. David and his stupid, big heart, his unrelenting determination to see something worth caring for in every God damned thing he saw, were all getting themselves into a situation far bigger than they could handle, because Max had been trying to handle it for  _ years _ and had never quite learned how.

David spoke again. “You’re a  _ kid, _ Max. You’re not a problem. You never were.”

But maybe Max just wasn’t equipped for it, and he’d been too scared to admit that he needed help.

Max looked at the ground and tried to wrap his head around all of this as David put his arm around his shoulders, and Max refused to believe that he leaned into the comfort he offered.

For a long time, there was silence, the murmuring behind the walls quiet enough to be disregarded. The small comfort of the moment was something Max wanted to focus on more, anyways — this was a fleeting feeling at best, it always had been and surely that wouldn’t change now.

Maybe. 

“Alright, what are you guys thinkin’ for lunch?” Gwen said, walking into the room. David looked up and beamed at her, genuine for the first time all day. “I’m thinking pizza. How about you guys?”

“That sounds great, Gwen!” David cheered, standing up and looking at Max. “You ready to go?”

Max nodded. “Yeah. Do you think we could get some ice somewhere? My ankle is killing me.”


End file.
